Tuesday, March 3, 2015

entropy flash

"[The Entropik E.P.] feels like an invitation to step into the background of the contemporary UK city, its alleyways, industrial parks and dumps, and be reminded that the same knackered infrastructure, inefficiencies and environmentally damaging processes still churn away behind the slick 21st century surface veneer. In ‘Entropy Symphony’ I hear a Disney’s Fantasia for municipal waste: the bell-like chimes of toxic effluent dripping from a pipe; discarded polystyrene cups, plastic bags and rusted trolleys skating an intricate ballet on the surface of a duckweed-ridden canal; blasts of Geiger-counter grit a warning of the invisible radiation of the past leaking out to deform and hack away at the gloss of the present. It may be projection on my part, but as someone living in London at the moment these jarring contradictions form a part of everyday life: rising homelessness and overt poverty juxtaposed with endless aspirational billboards for new housing developments, slick shopfronts and overpriced organic supermarkets. These all add to the sickened sense that your home city is on display for purchase by anyone save those of its current inhabitants most in need of housing; spruced up like a toy dog at a show competition, its imperfections temporarily varnished over or swept aside, away from the eyes of prospective buyers. Somehow, though, Entropik is a comforting reminder that underlying damp always seeps back through the fresh coats of paint slapped on to cover it."Gibbs suggests that one of the two long tracks on the E.P., "Entropy Flash" is a holler-back to Bass Clef's "Apathy Flash"Love the edge-of-painful puns - "Set Adrift On Memory Abyss" !Also reviewed, a record that samples Tony Benn.